Single Humbucker wiring diagram

[dioxic]

Hey guys, I have a guitar that has a single coil neck pickup and a splittable humbucker bridge.

I want to install a Joe barden single coil neck and a splittable two tone bridge pickup.

It has a three way switch and two knows, so I was thinking that it would be cool to wire it such that without any push pull knobs engaged it would be neck, both pickups on, bridge only in positions 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

Then, I thought it would be cool to have the tone knob (closer to the bridge) as a push pull pot to split the bridge pickup.

Secondarily, I wanted to pull up on the volume knob and have it make the neck and bridge in series instead of parallel.

I’d imagine there’s already a pre existing diagram that I could leverage for this?

It would be cool to be able to select which of the bridge coils are available with the split but I’m pretty limited with the control setup here so I think that will have to do!

[dioxic]

As a follow up, this could be an interesting solution linked below. Perhaps I could use this to select which coil is active in the humbucker bridge pickup?

And then add extra sounds by making one push pull a series / parallel and the other and in and out of phase switch? Would that be possible?

www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/triple-shot

[newey]

Oct 2, 2024 18:43:50 GMT -5 dioxic said:

Perhaps I could use this to select which coil is active in the humbucker bridge pickup?

Yes. With the triple shot pickup ring, you get each coil of the HB by itself, or both in parallel, or both in series. However, the difference in tone between splitting one coil versus the other may not be very dramatic. And only one of the coils will hum-cancel with your neck SC.

Using a push-pull for series/parallel between the two pickups is doable, there are any number of diagrams around here to show how to do that. The best way (and the only proper way, IMO) is to have the push/pull override the 3-way pickup selector, so that pulling up on the pot puts both pickups in series regardless of the position of the 3-way switch. The other alternative is to have the series setting available only when the 3-way switch is in the center position, which may mean having to use two different switches to go from, say, the neck pickup alone to both in series. You will see many series/parallel switch diagrams that do so, however, but definitely suboptimal.

The phase switch is a separate module which can be added into the rest of the scheme. Putting that switch on the neck pickup would make the most sense since that's the sole push/pull being used on that pickup, so less "wire spaghetti" than putting both push/pulls on the bridge. Also, a phase switch on the neck would make it easy to use either bridge coil with the neck and have it be hum-cancelling, if you're on the bridge coil that's noisier when combined with the neck, you just pull the phase switch and you get hum-cancellation.

You didn't mention what type of HB you will be using. If it's not a Joe Barden, you may have to do some testing to check polarity with the HB, and translating the wire colors from a given diagram to your reality may also be needed.

As far as the triple shot is concerned, in addition to the addded cost, the slide switches are tiny which may make it tough to switch those settings in mid-song, if that is something you do regularly in your playing. Your original idea of using one push/pull to split the bridge HB (you'd want to split to the coil that's hum-cancelling with the neck) and the other for series/parallel is also doable. Time to hit the bed tonight but I'll see about finding a HS diagram to do this when I can search for one hereabouts. The Triple Shot, if you decide to go that route, will have its own wiring diagram from SD, you'd just wire that as per the instructions, and the two wires exiting it would then get wired into the rest of the switching. Once you wire the HB to the Triple Shot ring, you can think of it as a "black box", you're only concerned with the wires coming out of it.

[dioxic]

Oct 2, 2024 21:53:04 GMT -5 newey said:

Oct 2, 2024 18:43:50 GMT -5 dioxic said:

Perhaps I could use this to select which coil is active in the humbucker bridge pickup?

Yes. With the triple shot pickup ring, you get each coil of the HB by itself, or both in parallel, or both in series. However, the difference in tone between splitting one coil versus the other may not be very dramatic. And only one of the coils will hum-cancel with your neck SC.

Using a push-pull for series/parallel between the two pickups is doable, there are any number of diagrams around here to show how to do that. The best way (and the only proper way, IMO) is to have the push/pull override the 3-way pickup selector, so that pulling up on the pot puts both pickups in series regardless of the position of the 3-way switch. The other alternative is to have the series setting available only when the 3-way switch is in the center position, which may mean having to use two different switches to go from, say, the neck pickup alone to both in series. You will see many series/parallel switch diagrams that do so, however, but definitely suboptimal.

The phase switch is a separate module which can be added into the rest of the scheme. Putting that switch on the neck pickup would make the most sense since that's the sole push/pull being used on that pickup, so less "wire spaghetti" than putting both push/pulls on the bridge. Also, a phase switch on the neck would make it easy to use either bridge coil with the neck and have it be hum-cancelling, if you're on the bridge coil that's noisier when combined with the neck, you just pull the phase switch and you get hum-cancellation.

You didn't mention what type of HB you will be using. If it's not a Joe Barden, you may have to do some testing to check polarity with the HB, and translating the wire colors from a given diagram to your reality may also be needed.

As far as the triple shot is concerned, in addition to the addded cost, the slide switches are tiny which may make it tough to switch those settings in mid-song, if that is something you do regularly in your playing. Your original idea of using one push/pull to split the bridge HB (you'd want to split to the coil that's hum-cancelling with the neck) and the other for series/parallel is also doable. Time to hit the bed tonight but I'll see about finding a HS diagram to do this when I can search for one hereabouts. The Triple Shot, if you decide to go that route, will have its own wiring diagram from SD, you'd just wire that as per the instructions, and the two wires exiting it would then get wired into the rest of the switching. Once you wire the HB to the Triple Shot ring, you can think of it as a "black box", you're only concerned with the wires coming out of it.

Thank you, this is very helpful. The humbucker is a Joe barden two tone, so I think it would be hum canceling regardless of the position / combination.

The idea around being able to select the coil on the humbucker was that I could select the inner coil and get a pseudo strat inbetween position when the pickup selector was in the middle, and then be able to do the neck pickup in series with the outer coil to get that telecaster esque sound. To your point, perhaps it won’t make a difference given it’s a minor change in position.

Maybe the setup will go something like this:
1. Neck pickup single coil
2. Neck + inner coil in parallel
3. Bridge series humbucking

Then I’d have two push pull pots that function:
Pot 1: when up-split humbucking pickup so that it’s neck + split bridge outer coil is in series for a tele sound
Pot 2: maybe a phase switch, or a switch that allows the normal neck + full humbucker in parallel.

After doing some research, I’m realizing that the Barden’s use a coil tap, not a split, so I don’t think the issue of which coil is being used matters. I don’t actually have the Bardens yet, so maybe I should do a little more research to determine if these are the pickups that I’d like to use for this setup.

Lastly, this is going in an old steinberger and I don’t want to replace the three way switch with a special one with more connections if at all possible.

[newey]

Well, if it's a tap then everything we said above is not on point. With the tap, you can use one P/P to tap the HB. I have no idea how that would sound combined with the SC, but you could always experiment to ee if you like it and would use it, if not, then redo it without the tap switch.

As they come from Fender, the 2 SCs of a Tele are in parallel, not series, so I don't think it will necessarily sound much like a Tele in series.

[dioxic]

Oct 3, 2024 10:26:59 GMT -5 newey said:

Well, if it's a tap then everything we said above is not on point. With the tap, you can use one P/P to tap the HB. I have no idea how that would sound combined with the SC, but you could always experiment to ee if you like it and would use it, if not, then redo it without the tap switch.

As they come from Fender, the 2 SCs of a Tele are in parallel, not series, so I don't think it will necessarily sound much like a Tele in series.

I think it's not uncommon to use bardens in this fashion. The tap is meant to sound like a single coil vs a humbucker, and I think you'd get an approximate strat quack position with them in parallel / tapped. To your point, it probably will sound quite different on the tele front however.

Let me sit and think on how to proceed. I appreciate the help here

[stevewf]

The Barden web page states that the TwoTone humbuckers use 6-conductor shielded cable, and that at the flick of a switch there's hum-free single-coil [like] sound.

The 6-conductor coil makes me think that both coils are individually tapped, and that the flicked switch would a) connect the two tap coils and b) break the "normal humbucker" series link between the two full-coils. That's a 2-pole switch.

Then you're left with choosing what to do with the other switch.